Big Bright Feelings: Milo's Monster

What’s it about?

The story.

Milo and his best friend are inseparable. Then his best friend makes another friend, and something dark and green and lumpy starts to grow. The monster is Milo's jealousy made visible, a physical presence that follows him around, getting bigger the more he feeds it. Tom Percival's visual device here is particularly effective: the monster is recognisably the feeling rather than something external, and readers will understand what it represents before the book makes it explicit. The resolution asks Milo to face what he's feeling and name it, and shows that naming a feeling is often the first step to loosening its grip. A useful book for the specific situation of a child whose best friend has found another friend, which is one of the more painful and hard-to-talk-about experiences of early childhood. Also useful for conversations about jealousy more broadly, and for children who struggle to understand why they behave badly when they feel threatened.